Sunday, March 28, 2010

Just back from a whirlwind trip out to San Francisco, and even though the folks at Delta Airlines rose to new and uncharted levels by managing to lose our carry on bag on the way back (seriously), we had such a great time!

First off, it was like I had a personal tour of the great 100 miler courses of the West during the flight out. It was perfectly clear weather-wise, so my view from the plane was remarkable. As an admitted GoogleEarth nerd, I pride myself on being able to identify cities and regions when flying over them. When we hit Denver and I saw how clear the skies were from 30,000 ft, I knew I'd be in for a treat over the next couple hours. First up was the Leadville course to the south, shortly after that, the big peaks of the Hardrock course could be identified too. A little while later, Lake Tahoe (home of the Tahoe Rim Trail which is on my lifetime to-do list) and the Western States course were easy to pick out from the right side of the plane. You can bet I was ready to run when I stepped off that plane!

...but this trip wasn't about running, it was about heading across the Golden Gate Bridge to the hills of Marin County for Amelia's wedding!

The only thing that could distract us from the beautiful views was Amelia looking stunning in her dress!

San Francisco smiles from below as Amelia and Joel say 'I Do'!!

Lizzy and I happy to be in such a beautiful place on such a happy occasion!

Lizzy grabs a photo op. with the bride as the John Muir Woods serve as the backdrop!

All in all, not a bad weekend! To top it off, I'm getting reports that some blazing fast Umstead times were run in NC on Saturday. Did Zach Gingerich really run a 13:23?!! Holy Cow!! ...and also amazingly impressive was fellow 24-Hour Teammate Serge Arbona's 14:09! When the discussion of running 100 miles in times like these come up, I definitely need to excuse myself from the table. Well done, guys!! Also getting a big congrats is another 24-Hour Teammate Jill Perry defended her title by winning the race again this year in 15:58...looks like she's tuned up and ready for France! A special congrats also go out to Tony Portera for nailing his ambitious goal of breaking 20 hours by rocking a 19:24 (!!) and Tammy Massie for destroying her PR with a 24:58 (!!!!!!!)...You guys are Amazing!!!!

With all this great running going on, I'm anxious to get my final France tune-up in this weekend in Philly! I'll be sure to post some sort of update before heading up later in the week. It looks like Utterli is up to its old habit of working about as well as New Coke tasted, so I may not be able to call in live updates, but hopefully I'll figure something out to keep everyone entertained during the run!

Jamie - Leadville is definitely on the list...no set year for it though since I'll be running it the year I do the Grand Slam...which means it'll be the year I get into WS100...which means I could be 93 years-old before I finally get to toe the line out there. Hopefully Hammer will make Tapioca and Prune flavored gels by then!

Thank you Staci! And what's this I read? You have another baby on the way? Congratulations to you! As for you, Mr. Rose, you humbly left out of your recap the awesome toast you gave. Thank you!!! As for your bag, last year I had an airline lose my checked bag, and when I gave them my baggage claim tag, they said they couldn't track it because their computer systems weren't compatible with any of their partner airline computer systems, and in fact their own IT system was down anyway.

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About Me

While undergoing chemo treatments in Boston in 2004, I knew if I was lucky enough to get healthy again, I needed to do my part to help inspire my friends who are/were/will be stuck in the hospital just like me.
I wanted to come back from treatments stronger than ever to prove cancer can actually be a blessing in many ways.
Thanks to an amazing network of friends and supporters, I have raised over $20,000 for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston through my post-cancer running adventures. Even more important than the money will hopefully be the inspiration a few of my fellow patients will feel when they read about my adventures. As my new running plans and goals develop over the years, the #1 reason for every step I run remains the same: To inspire cancer patients everywhere to make two fists when they wake up every morning and keep fighting!